Otomen, vol. 1-10

Otomen, vol. 1-10
by Aya Kanno
Published by VIZ Media LLC

This series first came out while I was in college and I remember borrowing the first few books from a friend to read and found it hilarious. I recently went to the library and saw they had volumes 1-10 on the shelf so I picked up all of them and re-indulged. I was not disappointed!

The premise of the series is that Asuka, the main character, has immersed himself into Kendo, Judo, and several other manly endeavors. The truth is, he's an "otomen", a man that enjoys feminine things. He hides this from his mother who has drilled into him that he must "act like a man" after dealing with Asuka's father leaving, declaring that he's always wanted to be a woman.

What I love about this series is similar why I love Gekkan Shojo Nozaki-kun (Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun) is that most of the gender roles and character tropes are reversed. Asuka's love interest is a girl who is very cute, but was raised by her single father, a dojo owner.

So of course, hilarity ensues!

There's hardly a time where I read a volume and I don't laugh out loud. The art style is very appealing, and Kanno does a great job of keeping the flow of the story going and showing when Asuka is emotionally moved without making him too out of character.

I look forward to reading the rest of the volumes!

Honey and Clover, Vol. 1-9

Honey and Clover, Vol. 1-9
by Chica Umino
Published by VIZ Media

This is a series that I first read when VIZ published their collective magazine Shojo Beat. It was something that was hard to read in a chapter a month format, just because this manga is very slice-of-life.

The art style appealed to me, so I picked up vol. 1-9 (10 is the last volume in the series) from the library and dived in.

The story follows a group of art school students as they go through school and deal with the struggles of transitioning from students to adults, and dealing with expectations that are given to them by the people and world around them.

Hagumi "Hagu", a 18 year old girl who appears (and acts) as a child. Sheltered from her upbringing, she's brought to art college by her cousin and guardian, Shuji, a professor at the art college.

Takemoto, who deals with his place in not only art school, but the role he wants to play in the world.

Morita, who appears as a slacker but also a gifted artist, who has a tendency to miss his final exams and has to repeat and his relation to a mysterious man who shows up to offer him jobs with good pay.

Mayama, who is in love with an older woman that doesn't seem to notice his feelings, and how he has to deal with growing up and proving to her that he is capable of taking care of her.

Yamada, who is in love with Mayama, struggles with staying true to her feelings and wishing Mayama would love her in return.

Because this is a slice-of-life, the themes and point of views change with each volume, but each small snippet of story leaves you with a happy, bittersweet feeling. Some of the stories are cheerful, some of the stories are darker. There are love triangles, there are real emotions that you feel as you come to know these characters.

I haven't gotten to read the last volume in the series (because for some reason the library doesn't have it?!) but I might cave and get it as a ebook, just so I can know how everything ends. I would definitely recommend this for people who don't have the attention for long stories, but enjoy small separate stories with fun characters who learn and grow the more volumes you read.

Catspell

Catspell
by Colleen Shannon
Mass Market Paperback, 342 pages
Published Jan. 1, 2006
9780505526113
Book #3 in the Shelley Holmes, Werewolf Detective Series

Synopsis from Goodreads.com

Shelley Holmes was accustomed to the bizarre. Such phenomena as werewolves and vampires held no surprises for her. But in all her years of investigating the paranormal, she had never run across a case like this one ...

Beautiful Arielle Blaylock was a proper Victorian miss by day, but a daring wanton by night. In her dreams she seemed to enter another life, one where sorcery and sensuality held sway. But how was it possible that the happenings of that shadow world were beginning to manifest themselves in reality? What was the significance of the Egyptian cat amulet she wore at her throat? And of the two mystical beings who fought to seduce her, which was destined to be her lover ... the creature of light or the one of darkness? As her midnight wanderings became ever more alluring, Arielle found herself lost in a maze of danger and desire where one misstep might mean the end of love and life.

I'll be honest, I'm a fan of romance novels, especially if they're weird or cheesy. I picked this up from Goodwill for about $.50, just because it sounded so outrageous that I felt like I had to read it. I feel like it's very misleading being labeled as a romance, because it seems like that was secondary in the story. Yes, it was present, but not in the normal books that I read that are labeled Paranormal Romance. I'm used to reading Laurell K. Hamilton, so I feel like I expect a certain level of smut and this book did not deliver on that point.

I think this book had a lot of potential, but it skipped around with point of views a lot, and not done with a changing of chapter, which is typical to the genre. There would be paragraph breaks where it would take the scene to a secondary, or even a few times, a SUPER minor character which I still don't see the point of him.

This book  had an interesting premise, but it was lost with the Mary Sue heroine with no luster and the undesirable love interests. I found myself wanting more about Shelley and Ethan because at least they were interesting when they bantered. There was also such a focus on cats that there were a few weird scenes that I read and immediately after was like did the author REALLY write that?!

If you're a fan of weird romances you might find yourself being pulled into the story (it really wasn't that bad!) but again, it was less of a romance with a rather predictable ending.

Crimson Bound

Crimson Bound

By Rosamund Hodge
Hardcover, 441 pages
Published May 5, 2015
9780032224767

Synopsis from Goodreads:

When Rachelle was fifteen she was good—apprenticed to her aunt and in training to protect her village from dark magic. But she was also reckless— straying from the forest path in search of a way to free her world from the threat of eternal darkness. After an illicit meeting goes dreadfully wrong, Rachelle is forced to make a terrible choice that binds her to the very evil she had hoped to defeat.
Three years later, Rachelle has given her life to serving the realm, fighting deadly creatures in an effort to atone. When the king orders her to guard his son Armand—the man she hates most—Rachelle forces Armand to help her find the legendary sword that might save their world. As the two become unexpected allies, they uncover far-reaching conspiracies, hidden magic, and a love that may be their undoing. In a palace built on unbelievable wealth and dangerous secrets, can Rachelle discover the truth and stop the fall of endless night?
Inspired by the classic fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood, Crimson Bound is an exhilarating tale of darkness, love, and redemption

 I thought this book was an interesting concept, but unlike Cruel Beauty, I was really put off by the main character. Her feelings flip-flopped a lot, which caused her actions to, and by the end I wasn't enthralled the way I had been reading the previous novel. I enjoyed the incorporation of a late 1700s France mixed with the author's own additives as the novel setting, but to me, the characters of this novel, along with the pacing, fell flat.

I don't think this was a bad book, I kept reading because I wanted to know what happened. I don't really feel like this one was a retelling/reimagining as much as the last novel was. In fact, there were a lot of ways it was very similar but the world was not correlated at all.

To be honest, I was very meh about the whole book. I liked the prose, and the secondary characters more than the main character, but this one was just lacking something and I still can't figure out what. I'll get back to you if it comes to me....

Cruel Beauty

Cruel Beauty
by Rosamund Hodge
Hardcover, 352 pages
Published January 28, 2014
9780062224736

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Since birth, Nyx has been betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom-all because of a foolish bargain struck by her father. And since birth, she has been in training to kill him.
With no choice but to fulfill her duty, Nyx resents her family for never trying to save her and hates herself for wanting to escape her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, Nyx abandons everything she's ever known to marry the all-poowerful, imoortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, destroy his enchanted castle, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people.
But Ignifex is not all what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle-a shifting maze of magical rooms-enthralls her.
As Nyx searches for a way to free her homeland by uncovering Ignifex's secrets, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. Even if she could bring herself to love h3er sworn enemy, how can she refuse her duty to kill him? with time running out, Nyx must decide what is more important: the future of her kingdom, or the man she was never supposed to love.

I first saw this book at a Books-A-Million the year it came out, took a picture of it with my phone so I wouldn't forget about it, and wouldn't you know I did just that. While going through some photos, I saw it again, and decided to -finally- pick it up and start reading.

I love fairy tale retellings and I must say, I loved this one. Reading about the author, I saw that Rosamund is a huge fan of mythology, which is very prevalent in this book, especially that she creates a world that is based/loosely based at times, on Greek mythology.

One thing I absolutely loved, was that the main character of Nyx, was not sweet. She was full of spite, while readily accepting her fate, she cursed the people who did nothing to stop it. She resents her sister who is full of her father's favor, and regrets being the daughter that bore her father's face. She had character, she was angry, and she had a job to do.

Hodge's prose is very well written. Sometimes, there's more explanation given for things that didn't really matter that much in the book, such religion, because the things that are explained don't give much to the story.

I loved Ignifex's charm, and how through the characters, the reader still has a chance to decide which "monster" is the most cruel.

All in all, it was a great book and I found it hard to put down after I got past the first three chapters.

Romancing the Inventor

Romancing the Inventor
by Gail Carriger
ebook, 149 pages
Published Nov. 1, 2016
9781944751067

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Imogene Hale is a lowly parlourmaid with a soul-crushing secret. Seeking solace, she takes work at a local hive, only to fall desperately in love with the amazing lady inventor the vampires are keeping in the potting shed. Genevieve Lefoux is heartsick, lonely, and French. With culture, class, and the lady herself set against the match, can Imogene and her duster overcome all odds and win Genevieve's heart, or will the vampires suck both of them dry?

This is a stand-alone LBGTQ sweet romance set in Gail Carriger's Parasolverse, full of class prejudice, elusive equations, and paranormal creatures taking tea.

I received a copy of the ebook from the author in exchange for my honest review.

First off, I've read Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series, The Finishing School Series, and the new Prudence series. Basically, what I'm trying to say is "I'm a Gail Carriger fan". 

Romancing the Inventor was such a breath of fresh air for me. One of my favorite things about Carriger's books is the characters. She write such diverse and colorful characters and Genevieve LeFoux has always been a favorite of mine since she debuted in Changeless. The constant sadness that came along with her character made me always quietly root for things to turn out well. She became even more of a favorite after reading some of her childhood in the Finishing School Series. To finally get to read Genevieve's happy ending was just wonderful.

Imogene, the main character of the story is lovely. character. She's strong willed, a romantic, and optimistic. She's trying to find where she fits in the world during a time period where women are supposed to be with men (and that's that), where classes don't mix. She constantly is saying she isn't special, only that she's "good with sums". Yet, there's something fresh and sweet about her, especially when staying strong defending herself against those who think she's trying to move up in the Hive household.

I thought the budding romance between Imogene and Genevieve was sweet, romantic, and completely natural. This was not my first forray into an LBGTO romance, but it definitely left me with more of a sweet happy feeling after reading, because of how well these two characters fit together.

In my opinion, Carriger's done it again with creating a novel in her series that is a romance, but is sweet and realistic, and just a lovely piece of standalone work. 

The Girl Who Drank the Moon

The Girl Who Drank the Moon
by Kelly Barnhill
388 pages, published Aug. 9, 2016 by Algonquin Young Readers
ISBN 1616205679 

Synopsis (From Goodreads):

Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who lives in the forest. They hope this sacrifice will keep her from terrorizing their town. But the witch in the forest, Xan, is kind and gentle. She shares her home with a wise Swamp Monster named Glerk and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon, Fyrian. Xan rescues the abandoned children and deliver them to welcoming families on the other side of the forest, nourishing the babies with starlight on the journey. 

One year, Xan accidentally feeds a baby moonlight instead of starlight, filling the ordinary child with extraordinary magic. Xan decides she must raise this enmagicked girl, whom she calls Luna, as her own. To keep young Luna safe from her own unwieldy power, Xan locks her magic deep inside her. When Luna approaches her thirteenth birthday, her magic begins to emerge on schedule--but Xan is far away. Meanwhile, a young man from the Protectorate is determined to free his people by killing the witch. Soon, it is up to Luna to protect those who have protected her--even if it means the end of the loving, safe world she’s always known.

QQ Sweeper Vol. 1-3

QQ Sweeper Vol. 1-3
By Kyousuke Motomi
Synopsis (from goodreads.com)

The manga's ad uses the tagline "brush away all the soot of the hear". The "cleaning story of love and bravery(!!)" follows Kyuutarou, who never leaves a speck of dust behind when he "cleans". One day, he meets a girl who wants to be his apprentice.

Review: 
First off, I'm a big fan of manga, especially 'shojo' titles, so my review may be a tad biased.  Potential spoilers ahead too.

This was a really interesting story idea. It is about people that harbor bad thoughts of self doubt, etc, that causes their minds to become corrupted or "dirty". They leave behind these black insects that Kyutaro "sweeps" away using magic. He calls himself a cleaner. He meets transfer student Fumi after she stumbles into the mind path and destroys a bug with her bare hands.

His brother has him take her on as an apprentice since she has no where to stay. The dynamic between them is similar to Motomi's other series, Dengenki Daisy, but the improved art and paranormal aspect of the story makes it fresh and a solid series in it's own right.

According to other reviews that I've read on Goodreads, this series ends with volume 3 and continues as a new series. I'm definitely interested in learning the continued story.

I rated this series as a 4, as the art and story were interesting, and kept my attention through all three volumes.

The Wild Robot

The Wild Robot
By Peter Brown

Hardcover, 288 pages

Published April 5th 2016 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

ISBN 0316381993

Synopsis (from goodreads.com)

When robot Roz opens her eyes for the first time, she discovers that she is alone on a remote, wild island. Why is she there? Where did she come from? And, most important, how will she survive in her harsh surroundings? Roz's only hope is to learn from the island's hostile animal inhabitants. When she tries to care for an orphaned gosling, the other animals finally decide to help, and the island starts to feel like home. Until one day, the robot's mysterious past comes back to haunt her....

I'm going to start this a review with me gushing about how much I love Peter Brown's children's books! I love Mr. Tiger Goes Wild, Children Make Terrible Pets. When I saw he had a middle grade book, I wondered if his magic of telling stories would shine through. I was not disappointed.

Roz the robot is wonderful. For a robot with "no emotions" Roz's personality begins to shine through with her actions and those end up ultimately defining her. I love that even though animals run away, she is persistent, and observes, learning how to make the animals less frightened of her.

The book also covers a lot of subjects that are great entry-ways into deeper conversation with a child that might be middle grade aged. 

-Adoption (with the caretaking of Bright Beak)
-Death
-Responsibility
-Building relationships
-Communication
-Pollution/Global Warming

I really liked how Peter Brown approached the subject of death, and how it was perceived by the animals in the forest. The harshness of it along with the casual, this is how things are.

It was such a wonderful book, one that I read hurriedly in an afternoon and I was not disappointed, and the lesson of doing things for the greater good of all was just such a wonderful message and had such a wonderful messenger in Roz, the robot.

Sorry for lack of activity!

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't posted much, I've been doing a lot of reviews on goodreads.com. Feel free to add me there (saruwarui) for reviews.

I'm going to try to start using this more as I'd like to keep documenting books that I've read! Stay tuned for some reviews!

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
by Holly Black
Published September 3rd 2013 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
419 pages

Summary: (from Goodreads.com)

Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. The only problem is, once you pass through Coldtown’s gates, you can never leave.

One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret. Shaken and determined, Tana enters a race against the clock to save the three of them the only way she knows how: by going straight to the wicked, opulent heart of Coldtown itself.

Review:
I thought it was interesting that the book started out with a "wow factor"; a girl is one of three people left alive at the party. The weird thing about this to me is, this book is about vampires. They can smell blood. They can hear heartbeats. Why would they just happen to skip a girl who fell asleep in a bathtub? Despite that one thing that irked me through the entire book, I thought it was pretty interesting as far as vampire fiction for teens goes. The main thing I liked about it was Tana was a strong lead female. I also liked that romance was NOT the main theme of the story, only a fragment of a side theme (and even then it wasn't really interesting). 

I pretty much felt blah about this whole book. The plot of the story was rather boring. It got good for maybe the last 5 chapters(?) and then it was just sort of up and down from that. I'd actually be more interested in a sequel if there was one since Ms. Black already has the characters and the setting already fleshed out so she could spend more time on a better story line and I would like to see how the character relationships turn out.

SCORE: 3/5

Maid for Me

Maid for Me
by Kat Lieu
Published November 18, 2009 by NummyzProd

Summary (from goodreads.com):

Feisty Mina Lin waltzes on glass shards when she lands a job as billionaire Jaiden Daniels's maid. What happens when Jaiden hires her to become his pretend girlfriend? Pretending to be in love with the hot Rich Boy is hard, when Mina's heart only beats for her boy next door, Kiterin Forrests. What happens when Mina doesn't know what her heart wants and a crazy Stalker is after Jaiden's life, and the only person who can save him is Mina?

Find out in Maid for Me, starring Mina Lin, an ambitious, silly, funny, and talented Asian-American heroine who has even developed her own fighting styled called Mina-Jitsu. A fast-paced debut novel for young adults, by Kat Lieu. Filled with hilarious dialogue, suspense, sparkling wit and imagination-- a romance novel packed with action and humor!

Review:
I read this as a free e-book download through my Amazon Prime membership. While I applaud the author for self-publishing and writing a novel, this book was a little bit of a disappointment. While Maid for Me isn't the worst book that I have ever read, it definitely needed a lot of work. The point of view between characters sometimes changed within the next paragraph or even to a different set of characters who were not even in the current setting. Near the climax of the story, the point of view changed so frequently that it ruined the whole pacing and took me away from the suspense. While I thought it was a cute, spunky read that would definitely appeal to fans of Japanese dramas and Korean dramas, or even anime and manga; it has little going for it outside of that. There could have been a little more character development with all the characters of the book, as I often felt I was just reading the story instead of 'being there'.

2/5

Maggot Moon

Maggot Moon
by Sally Gardner
Published February 12, 2013 by Candlewick

Summary:
(from goodreads.com)

What if the football hadn’t gone over the wall? On the other side of the wall there is a dark secret. And the devil. And the Moon Man. And the Motherland doesn’t want anyone to know. But Standish Treadwell — who has different-colored eyes, who can’t read, can’t write, Standish Treadwell isn’t bright — sees things differently than the rest of the "train-track thinkers." So when Standish and his only friend and neighbor, Hector, make their way to the other side of the wall, they see what the Motherland has been hiding. And it’s big...One hundred very short chapters, told in an utterly original first-person voice, propel readers through a narrative that is by turns gripping and darkly humorous, bleak and chilling, tender and transporting.

Review:

Maggot Moon is really written beautifully; sentences flow off of each other with ease and add to the continuous flow of the story. However, I felt like this book was very confusing! The summary states that it is set in a Regime, and using context clues, one concludes that it is a Russian one due to the use of the word "Motherland" in reference to the country. I've read in other reviews that it is a "what-if" novel, concluding what the world would be like if Germany had won WWII. Either way, the book is eerie: a post-apocolyptic-esque setting with a Big Brother type governement ruling with an iron fist. While I enjoy books that thrust you right into the story with little explanation, this book didn't make much sense to me until about the last 30 chapters. The ending was not what I was expecting, but to be honest, none of the book is really what I expected it to be. I think one of the best things this book has is small chapters. It would be great for a reluctant reader to feel accomplished and keep reading on.

2.5/5

Ketchup Clouds

Ketchup Clouds
by Annabel Pitcher
Published November 12, 2013 by Little Brown Books for Young Readers

Summary:
(from goodreads.com)

Dear Mr. S. Harris, 
Ignore the blob of red in the top left corner. It's jam, not blood, though I don't think I need to tell you the difference. It wasn't your wife's jam the police found on your shoe. . . . 
I know what it's like. 
Mine wasn't a woman. Mine was a boy. And I killed him exactly three months ago. 
Zoe has an unconventional pen pal--Mr. Stuart Harris, a Texas Death Row inmate and convicted murderer. But then again, Zoe has an unconventional story to tell. A story about how she fell for two boys, betrayed one of them, and killed the other. 
Hidden away in her backyard shed in the middle of the night with a jam sandwich in one hand and a pen in the other, Zoe gives a voice to her heart and her fears after months of silence. Mr. Harris may never respond to Zoe's letters, but at least somebody will know her story--somebody who knows what it's like to kill a person you love. Only through her unusual confession can Zoe hope to atone for her mistakes that have torn lives apart, and work to put her own life back together again.

Review
Ketchup Clouds is a book about "Zoe", a resident of the UK who reaches out to a inmate on death row in Texas, USA because they have something in common: they both killed someone.

The story is told through letters that Zoe has written to inmate Stuart Harris, regarding the events leading up to how she supposedly killed someone. While the book deals with the immense guilt and remorse that Zoe feels about this incident, it isn't the only focus of the book. Zoe's family problems are also brought to light as well as the story of two boys.

I enjoyed reading Ketchup Clouds because of the well written prose of Zoe's letters and the even pacing. It was fast when Zoe's emotions were intense, and slow when she was down. You get caught up in the book so quickly because you're only getting snippets of what happens, and as the story progresses you start reading a bit obsessively to figure out who it is that she killed.


I feel like the book ended well, but when I read the last page, I hate to admit that I didn't feel strongly that I liked or disliked this book. I thought it was well written and that I quickly related to the characters.  I found myself less interested in the story that Zoe had to tell and more interested in the problems of her family, as the characteristics of her other family members seemed to outshine her own. 

While I think this was a good read, I feel like it was also missing something and what it is I can't put my finger on.

3/5

Masque of the Red Death

Masque of the Red Death
by Bethany Griffin
Published April 2012 by Greenwillow Books

Summary (goodreads):

Everything is in ruins.A devastating plague has decimated the population. And those who are left live in fear of catching it as the city crumbles to pieces around them. So what does Araby Worth have to live for?
Nights in the Debauchery Club, beautiful dresses, glittery make-up . . . and tantalizing ways to forget it all.
But in the depths of the club—in the depths of her own despair—Araby will find more than oblivion. She will find Will, the terribly handsome proprietor of the club. And Elliott, the wickedly smart aristocrat. Neither boy is what he seems. Both have secrets. Everyone does. And Araby may find something not just to live for, but to fight for—no matter what it costs her.

Review:
I picked this one up when one of my favorite authors left a tempting review for it on Goodreads before it was released. It follows Araby Worth into a world corrupted by plague and the rich King Prospero. Everyone wears masks to avoid catching the plague, but they are normally only afforded by the rich. For me, the story was hard to follow in the beginning, just because there would be a scene transition but the flow of the writing didn't allow for me to pick up on such things. Again, it was probably because of the type of reader I am (FAST!). I liked the secondary characters and the ending was very unpredictable, at least to me, something that doesn't happen often in YA books anymore. I finished it in a few days of reading on and off because the story and the writing pulled me into the world, and I didn't want to leave until the book was finished. The ending left me a bit unsatisfied, but I was happier when I checked again on Goodreads and found that it is actually going to be a series.

3.5/5

Friends with Boys

Friends with Boys

Faith Erin Hicks

Published Feb. 2012 by First Second

224 illustrated pages

Summary:

A coming-of-age tale with a spooky twist!

Maggie McKay hardly knows what to do with herself. After an idyllic childhood of homeschooling with her mother and rough-housing with her older brothers, it’s time for Maggie to face the outside world, all on her own. But that means facing high school first. And it also means solving the mystery of the melancholy ghost who has silently followed Maggie throughout her entire life. Maybe it even means making a new friend—one who isn’t one of her brothers.

Review:

This graphic novel follows Maggie, a homeschooled teenager, and her immersion into public high school. She has a challenge: making a friend that isn’t one of her 3 older brothers. Kookier still, is a ghost that follows Maggie around through various points of the story. Not only does she have to deal with High School but a ghost as well.

Hicks does a great job putting you in the shoes of Maggie. Each page is richly illustrated with backgrounds and there is a lot of feeling behind character’s facial expressions. It’s surprising how she uses body language and expressions to say things that are unsaid, like the animosity between her eldest brother and one of her new friends.

The novel sometimes feels like a slice of life comic, with no particular plot line. It seems to gain more of a storyline near the end of the book, and I’m hoping for something a bit more structured in book 2.

I’m also still a little unclear on why the author chose the title she did for the series, but I assume that in the original drafts the storyline pertained a bit more to the title.

Fans of the Scott Pilgrim series will most likely enjoy Friends with Boys.

3.5/5

The Deathday Letter

Deathday Letter

by Shaun Hutchinson

Published by Simon Pulse June 2010

256 pages

Summary (from Amazon): Oliver lives in a world where at some point in their lives, everyone receives a Deathday Letter, a letter that kindly lets you know you have twenty-four hours left to live. Abraham Lincoln received one, Heath Ledger received one, and on an otherwise typical Thursday morning, fifteen-year-old Oliver Travers receives one. Bummer.

With his best friend by his side, Ollie has one day left to live life to the fullest, go on every adventure possible…and set things right with the girl of his dreams.

Review:

Set in a world like our own where people receive letters letting them know when they are going to die, you think that this story would be a bit darker. The main character Oliver, is a riot. There were so many times I had to stop reading the book because I was laughing too hard. His wit and sense of humor keep the story fresh while he lives out his last day alive with his two friends.

While it is a story about a boy living his last day, there is also great character development. The Ollie we see at the beginning of the story is very different from the one at the end. He learns that even though he’s going to die, there are others that are going to have to deal with the grief left behind. He goes from being a very selfish boy to finally realizing that the world doesn’t revolve around him.

The only thing I found annoying was the constant “me-me-me” attitude of Ollie. At first it’s funny, but after a while it begins to grate on your nerves. Still, I loved this book and it was a fun read.

3.5/5

Fracture

Fracture
Megan Miranda
Published January 17th 2012 by Walker Childrens
284 pages

Summary (from Goodreads):

Eleven minutes passed before Delaney Maxwell was pulled from the icy waters of a Maine lake by her best friend Decker Phillips. By then her heart had stopped beating. Her brain had stopped working. She was dead. And yet she somehow defied medical precedent to come back seemingly fine. Everyone wants Delaney to be all right, but she knows she's far from normal. Pulled by strange sensations she can't control or explain, Delaney finds herself drawn to the dying. Is her altered brain now predicting death, or causing it?

Then Delaney meets Troy Varga, who recently emerged from a coma with similar abilities. At first she's reassured to find someone who understands the strangeness of her new existence, but Delaney soon discovers that Troy's motives aren't quite what she thought. Is their gift a miracle, a freak of nature-or something much more frightening?

Review
I recieved an ebook sampler containing the first chapter of this book and wow, was I hooked. Delaney Maxwell falls through the thin ice of a lake and is underwater for 11 minutes before she's rescued. But miraculously, after 6 days she's awake and fully functional out of a coma. A modern medical miracle.
But is she alright? You follow Delaney through what her doctors and parents call "hallucinations" where she feels a pull towards people for some reason and the mysterious shadow figures she sees when she follows these pulls.

I liked the relationship between Delaney and her friend Decker, mostly because there was a lot of character developement between the two. Delaney has to deal with very real problems after her stint at the hospital, mainly trying to get her life back into the normal pattern it was in before she died and came back. Her relationship with Decker, her relationship with her mother and father, and he relationship with this mysterious man Troy Varga, that knows about her and almost died from a coma as well.

For a debut novel, this one was a good read. It hooked me from the very beginning, and while some parts of the book felt lacking or the pacing a little slow, I ultimately wanted to know what would happen so I kept reading.

If you like darker stories, I would definitely recommend Fracture. This might also be a good read for reluctant readers because it is rather short and does a great job of catching the reader's attention from the beginning.

3.5/5

Dearly, Departed (Gone with Respiration #1)

Dearly, Departed
Lia Habel
Del-Ray October 18, 2011
496 pages

Summary: (from Amazon)
Can a proper young victorian lady find true love in the arms of a dashing zombie?

The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria—a high-tech nation modeled on the mores of an antique era. Sixteen-year-old Nora Dearly is far more interested in her country’s political unrest than in silly debutante balls. But the death of her beloved parents leaves Nora at the mercy of a social-climbing aunt who plans to marry off her niece for money. To Nora, no fate could be more horrible—until she’s nearly kidnapped by an army of walking corpses. Now she’s suddenly gunning down ravenous zombies alongside mysterious black-clad commandos and confronting a fatal virus that raises the dead. Then Nora meets Bram Griswold, a young soldier who is brave, handsome, noble . . . and thoroughly deceased. But like the rest of his special undead unit, Bram has been enabled by luck and modern science to hold on to his mind, his manners, and his body parts. And when his bond of trust with Nora turns to tenderness, there’s no turning back. Eventually, they know, the disease will win, separating the star-crossed lovers forever. But until then, beating or not, their hearts will have what they desire.

Review:
I didn't actually read this book, but actually listened to the audio book. You're introduced to Nora Dearly, who is in mourning of her deceased father in Neo-Victoria (high techology civilization with customs of the Victorian era). I grew to love Nora, mainly because she was a girl put in her culture that thought against the norms. She cared nothing about being in a profitable marriage, and she was the type of female protagonist that I enjoy reading: Strong and unwilling to bend to other's opinions. She's an easily likeable character.

When she officially meets Bram Griswold, a member of a secret zombie army troop, Nora keeps her head. I grew to love Bram's character and all of the secondary character zombies, although it seemed that there was quite a few of them and could be hard to keep up with at times (I loved Chas!).

What I think brought this novel down is the changing of POVs between 5 characters. While the switching between Nora and Bram was almost expected, the 3 other characters, Nora's best friend Pamela, Nora's father Victor, and Wolfe, were a little much. While I did enjoy Pamela's chapters (for the most part they were normally action filled), the author could have maybe inserted more action with Nora and Bram instead of the constant switching. It made it hard for me to keep up with the events, making the book feel like it was dragging its legs behind it.

All in all, it's a good debut novel, filled with more zombies than you can shake a stick at. I might give the second book a read, just to see what happens to Nora and Bram.

3/5 stars

You Wish

You Wish
Mandy Hubbard
August 5, 2010, Razorbill
272 pages

Summary(from goodreads):
Kayla McHenry's sweet sixteen sucks! Her dad left, her grades dropped, and her BFF is dating the boy Kayla's secretly loved for years. Blowing out her candles, Kayla thinks: I wish my birthday wishes actually came true. Because they never freakin' do.

Kayla wakes the next day to a life-sized, bright pink My Little Pony outside her window. Then a year's supply of gumballs arrives. A boy named Ken with a disturbing resemblance to the doll of the same name stalks her. As the ghosts of Kayla's wishes-past appear, they take her on a wild ride . . . but they MUST STOP. Because when she was fifteen? She wished Ben Mackenzie would kiss her. And Ben is her best friend's boyfriend.

Review:
First off, I want to say that I loved the whimsy that this book held. How many times has one blown out the candles on the birthday cake wishing something extraordinary would happen? I for one cannot remember wishes from one year to the next, so it was definitely a fun read for Kayla to live through the wishes she had asked for through different periods in her life.

I liked how fun this book was to read, and there were several moments where I laughed out loud. The character growth that Kayla went through from making the wish and to the end of the book was very realistic. She dealt with feelings for her estranged father and tried to gain attention from her workaholic mother. These are situations that teens have to deal with a lot more with working class parents.

I found the book fun and a quick read. For some reason, the book read a bit older than one published in 2010, but it was still a good, fun read.

4/5